Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Iran. Here’s what we know so far:
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed, according to Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Israel has yet to make any comment on Haniyeh’s killing but in its statement, Hamas accused Israel of the attack. Associated Press reports that analysts on Iranian state television have also begun blaming Israel for the attack.
The Hamas statement said the group mourned Haniyeh “who died as a result of a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran, after participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president”.
The assassination was reported on Iranian State TV early on Wednesday morning. In a statement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said “The cause and dimensions of this incident are being investigated and the results will be announced later.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Haniyeh had been targeted in his residence along with an Iranian bodyguard. It said he had been in Iran to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian and that the circumstances of the “incident” was being investigated.
Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said Haniyeh’s death “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”, according to the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV. Another Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri has told Reuters that the killing is a grave escalation that will not achieve its goals.
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee called Haniyeh’s killing a “heinous terrorist crime”, according to Reutersand “a flagrant violation of laws and ideal values.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has strongly condemned the killing, Palestinian state news agency Wafa reported. Palestinian national and Islamic factions have also called for a general strike and mass demonstrations in response to the assassination.
Although Israel has not formally commented, several Israeli ministers have reacted to Haniyeh’s assassination. The heritage minister, Amichay Eliyahu, celebrated his killing, writing on X: “Haniyeh’s death makes the world a little better” and that this is the “right way to clean the world from this filth”.
Shlomo Karhi, minister of communications, wrote on X: “Yes, all your enemies will perish, O God”, although the post appeared later to have been deleted.
Amichai Chikli, minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, posted a video of the Hamas leader on X with the caption, “Careful What You Wish For”.
Haniyeh was the exiled political chief of the militant group and had spent much of his time in recent years in Qatar. During the Israel-Gaza war he had acted as a negotiator in the ceasefire talks and liased with Hamas’s main ally, Iran. He was photographed in Tehran on Tuesday meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Ziyad al-Nakhalah.
Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel claimed it killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend.
There are fears that the deaths could escalate tensions between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran, threatening the US leading a global diplomatic effort to prevent a full-blown regional conflict.
